24 August 2016

Hiroshima 2016 Focus on Japanese Animation: Day 1

Hiroshima 2016 Focus on Japanese Animation:
Day 1

Hiroshima 2016 Focus on Japanese Animation: Day 1

Thursday, August 18

8月18 日（木）

As mentioned
in 16th
International Animation Festival Hiroshima 2016: Overview, the country focus
at this year’s festival was Japan.Since
its founding, the motto of the Hiroshima festival has been “Love and Peace.”The festival co-founders, the late Renzō
Kinoshita and current festival director Sayoko Kinoshita, made a film about the
bombing of Hiroshima called Pica-don (ピカドン, 1978) ) (read review)
which is one of the greatest anti-war animations ever made.Isao
Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies
was made in the same spirit as Pica-don,
which is why it is fitting that it should have opened the Japan Animation
Special.It was followed by two
documentaries by anime pioneer Taiji
Yabushita (薮下泰司, 1903-1986) about early Japanese animation history. Yabushita
was the director of Tōei Animation’s first full colour feature anime The Tale of the White Serpent (1958), as
well as their early features Magic Boy
(1959) Alakazam the Great (1960), The Littlest Warrior (1960) and Arabian Nights Sinbad’s Adventures
(1962).

This
selection of films celebrates early animation pioneers in Japan.It includes rare examples of the earliest commercial
animation made in Japan – Jun’ichi Kōuchi’s
Namakura Gatana (1917) and Seitarō
Kitayama’s Urashima Tarō (1917).Both films were considered lost until a
researcher discovered copies in an antique shop in Osaka in 2008.There is also an early work by Sanae Yamamoto, who later in life would help produce Toei Animation’s
first feature anime, as well as works byHidehiko
Okuda, Tomu Uchida, Hakusan Kimura, Kiyoji Nishikura, and Ikuo Ōishi.Yoshitsugu
Tanaka’s Chimney-Sweeper Perrault
(1930) is a rare example of an early silhouette animation film (kage animation).Inspired by screenings of Lotte Reiniger’s works in Japan in the
1920s and Japan’s domestic traditions of kage-e
and kage (shadow/silhouette) puppetry, Noburō Ōfuji became a master innovator of this technique in
animation.His work features heavily in
this programme, including his 1952 film The
Whale, which alongside his work The
Phantom Ship (1956) brought his unique style of animation to the attention
of European critics in the 1950s (Venice Biennale, Cannes, etc.).He is considered Japan’s pioneering
independent animator.See: Noburō
Ōfuji Award

This
selection features more works by early Japanese animation pioneers.Yasuji
Murata was mentored by Sanae Yamamoto in animation techniques and went on
to become a master of cutout animation – a style used by most early animators
in Japan because of the expense and lack of availability of celluloid for cel
animation.Murata is famous in
particular for his use of popular Japanese characters such as folk hero Momotarō
and popular manga figure Norakuro the dog.Wagorō Arai was a dentist who
dabbled in silhouette animation – read
more about him here – inspired, like Noburō
Ōfuji by seeing the works of Lotte
Reiniger in the 1920s.One of his
most renowned works, Madame Butterfly's
Fantasy (1940), was co-directed by Nakaya
Tobiishi.Mitsuyo Seo is famous in the western world for being the director
of the notorious propaganda feature anime Momotaro's
Divine Sea Warriors (1945).But just
as Walt Disney is not defined by his
company’s World War II propaganda works in the USA, Mitsuyo Seo is acclaimed for
his contributions to the development of anime as we know it today.His animation inspired a young Osamu Tezuka and many others to become
animators themselves.Ari-chan (1941) is arguably his best
work and was made with the assistance of Tadahito
Mochinaga.Learn more
here.

1. Animal Olympic Games (1928), Yasuji Murata

2. Two Worlds (1929), Yasuji Murata

3. Princess
of the Moon Palace (1934), Yasuji Murata

4. Madame Butterfly's Fantasy (1940), Wagorō Arai,
Nakaya Tobiishi

5. Twilight
Crane (c. 1989-93), Wagorō Arai

(aka A
Japanese Folk Tale: The Crane Returns a Favour)

6. Private
Norakuro Series 1 (Norakuro ittohei, 1935), Mitsuyo Seo

7. Private
Norakuro Series 2 (Norakuro nitohei.1935), Mitsuyo Seo

8. Duck
Brigade (Ahiru Rikusentai, 1940), Mitsuyo Seo

9. Ari-chan the Ant, Mitsuyo Seo

日本アニメーション大特集４：歴史②

1. 動物オリムピック大會 村田安司

2. 漫画二つの世界 村田安司

3. 新版月の宮の王女様 村田安司

4. お蝶夫人の幻想 荒井和五郎、飛石仲也

5. 昔噺名残之太布おつる別れの場 荒井和五郎

6. のらくろシリーズのらくろ一等兵 瀬尾光世

7. のらくろシリーズのらくろ二等兵 瀬尾光世

8. あひる陸戦隊 瀬尾光世

9. アリチャン 瀬尾光世

Japanese Animation Special 5：History ③

Some have
called Kenzō Masaoka “the Japanese
Walt Disney” or “the Father of Japanese Animation.”While he did not share Walt Disney’s
business acumen, he certainly was a superior animation artist.He was a mentor to Mitsuyo Seo, Yasuji Mori,
Akira Daikubara, and Masao Kumakawa,
whose work The Magic Pen (1946) also
features in this selection alongside Masaoka’s works.Masaoka is seen as a key figure in the birth
of what is now Toei Animation. Read reviews of his works The
Spider and the Tulip (1946), Cherry Blossoms (1946),
and Tora-chan:
The Abandoned Kitten (1947).